|
 Informing the audience of the circumstances surrounding Hellboy's origins with a few terse sentences before the opening credits roll, the movie proper starts in an American army base blanketed by snow on Christmas Eve. It's 1955 and inside one snug residence we find a prepubescent Hellboy, all buckteeth and bloodshot eyes, watching TV. His adoptive parent, the bookish professor who only a dozen years before was a young man, but is now old and graying (perhaps raising the devil ages you), tucks him into bed with a story. Opening a thick leather-bound volume, he recounts the quasi-mythical tale of an ancient war between humans and elves. To quell the bloodshed, the Elven king unleashed an invincible Golden Army numbering 70 times 77 that nearly annihilates mankind. Saddened by the carnage and wanting peace, the Elven king breaks the crown he wears that commands the Golden Army into three pieces, one of which is given to the humans in a symbolic truce. Thus, the elves and their ilk retreated to the forests while the human race lorded over the earth. Putting the book away, his dad leaves the room as Hellboy goes to sleep clutching a toy pistol. All of a sudden these awesome mechanical gears start to turn, their machinations spelling out "Hellboy II: The Golden Army." Hoah-ly shit.
Apparently the king of the Elves had two immortal children, Pricess Nuala and her bro, Prince Nuada. Unable to stomach the truce with mankind, Prince Nuada exiled himself. Spending his days underground and not wearing a shirt, he kills time by vigorously practicing with a dagger that grows becomes a spear. He's one cool motherfucker, deathly pale and muscular with long silky hair, really metal. In fact, he bears a striking resemblance to Nergal from Behemoth. Twirling around and stomping on a puddle, his martial skills are so precise he can slice a falling drop of water in half. Woah. Just when the audience least expects it, a subway train zooms past him. This is supposed to establish how long he's been underground-millenia-and his ambivalence toward humanity's modern technology. From a corner emerges his partner in crime, this hideous Ogre with a retractable mechanical arm named Wink. Together they interrupt an ongoing auction in a museum just a manhole away from their lair. Bonded By Blood? Having dispatched security and frightened the guests, Prince Nuada claims one segment of the supposed-to-be-auctioned crown-the ornament to control the Golden Army, one part kept by man-and scares the people in the room with cryptic threats. With Wink's help they lug these ornate suitcases to either end of the aisle and open them. Before the creepy crawlies inside are revealed amidst the human screams the scene shifts to the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense. It's here that Hellboy's boss, Mr. Baldy (HailndKill forgot his name), is received by the psychic half fish dude. Walking side by side, Baldy bemoans the pressures of his job, but the strange life forms throughout the facility catch your attention so you can't properly listen to what he's saying. Seeing thrashing alien creatures with slimy tentacles being wrestled to submission shows how the Bureau is a mix of Constantine and Men in Black. When the two finally reach the entrance to Hellboy's pad we learn of his ongoing relationship with Liz, the combustible girl from the first movie. To underscore the growing wrinkles bedeviling (pun intended) their live in arrangement, a giant steel door is flung by an explosion across a hallway, missing Baldy and Aquaman (henceforth this character shall be referred to as Aquaman) by inches.
Once inside Hellboy's apartment, Liz is literally on fire while her BF vainly tries reasoning with her. However, before the feuding couple can settle their differences they go out on assignment, Hellboy promising Baldy he'll be subtle since random photographs of him are surfacing in the press. Reaching the building where doomed auction took place, a team of Bureau agents and the three weirdoes-Hellboy, Aquaman, and human torch girl, uh, Liz-are assailed by tooth fairies. But they aren't cute and dainty. These tooth fairies are fearsome little monsters who go for a victim's teeth, grind it to dust, and then devour the body. Such is the predictable fate of all the human Bureau agents until Liz flames up, Aquaman hides in a vault, and the ensuing fire ball throws Hellboy out the window. His fall is cushioned by a police car and Hellboy's suddenly in the public eye, scores of paparazzi cameras flashing. Baldy, who had earlier given Hellboy Cuban cigars in exchange for a promise to be subtle, looks on in shock as Liz and Aquaman emerge from the museum unscathed and the reporters converge on them too. Despite the sudden fanfare, both are now privy to a shocking secret-Liz is pregnant! How? Why? The how is because she had sex with Hellboy between the first movie and this sequel. The why is, well, they had sex, right? But Liz herself didn't know she was preggers until she and Aquaman were about to be attacked by tooth fairies. Placing his hand protectively on her stomach to nudge her behind him, Aquaman's psychic powers detects Liz's anomaly. Uh oh . . . with Liz and Hellboy still in ‘fighting' mode and this new case they're on, how can she tell her man about what's inside her?
Back in Hellboy's pad, Liz locks herself inside the CR and frantically takes pregnancy tests that all turn out positive. Her unknowing BF, on the other hand, is basking in the sudden media exposure, enjoying newscasts about their latest exploit on multiple TV screens. Unfortunately their boss didn't take the publicity very well so the three are given a new leader, this robotic individual moving around in what looks like an old diving suit who speaks with a German accent. His 'power' besides superior intelligence is an ability to resuscitate (more like possessing actually) inanimate objects and dead bodies. It's later explained that he's a ghost inhabiting a mechanical body of leather and steel built by Hellboy's adoptive father. Hellboy and company witness his power firsthand when he revives a dead tooth fairy using smoke released from his index finger (HailndKill wonders what comes out of his middle finger), for a moment the resurrected creature blurts out a couple of leads but dies too soon to give anything conclusive. Assuming the four of them go out on assignment again that same night, they take a converted dump truck to downtown New York and accost an old lady using these specially made goggles. Said goggles reveal her true form: she's a vile troll who devours cats and cat-loving Hellboy doesn't like that, so he forces her to reveal the location of this magical wet market where the tooth fairies were allegedly bought. Upon entering--German robot ghost dude animating the lock to the market's gate-they plunge into an environment not far removed from Claro M. Recto or Quiapo, with all manner of strange things being sold and weirdos congesting the narrow streets.
Fast the fuck forward past useless dialogue and Aquaman catches sight of Princess Nuala and falls for her. He follows the hooded princess to a bookstore where she confronts him. Cornered and suspicious, Nuala tells Aquaman she's fleeing from her bro, who had murdered their father, the king of the Elves, in a frenzy of martial arts moves and swordplay, to possess the crown's missing link. Remember, the crown that controls the Golden Army has three parts, since robbing the auction house and killing his own father, Prince Nuada now has two. The last piece is with Nuala, so he dispatches Wink to retrieve it from her. Wink, that hulking, hideous ogre, barges on Nuala and Aquaman's initial flirtation and whups the latter's ass. Reaching an alley flooded by open sewage, Wink comes face-to-face with Hellboy and they fight. Yeah, HailndKill never saw that coming! Long story short, Wink dies, Nuala is with Aquaman, who's enamored with her, and before the collection of protagonists reaches their converted dump truck, Nuada appears and throws a seed at them, whispering "kill him" to it.
Bouncing past Hellboy and uselessly chased by Aquaman, the green seed, which looks like a very edible gummi bear, falls down a sewer and transforms into a tentacled green minded (not kidding, there's this green glowing thing in what passes for it's head) forest god. A fuckin' what? A frightening giant broccoli that bleeds uhog when shot by Hellboy's specially made hand cannon. Anyway, it dies, and our heroes quickly retire to their HQ. Matters only get worse between Hellboy and Liz, who almost separate, while Aquaman falls head over heels for Nuala. At this point, the movie's more comic and light hearted moments happen, like german-robot-ghost-dude accidentally getting killed when Hellboy punches the glass bubble that's his head. His gaseous spirit slowly vanishes into every nearby nook and cranny. (Isn't it awkward when you have to describe his powers as "He releases gas"? Parang malalakas na utot yung kakayahan niya.) Just when we think Hellboy murdered a good guy in a fit of rage he animates a locker and uses its doors to whup Hellboy, and it's pretty amusing. Humbled by the beating, Hellboy moves to Aquaman's library and forces the fish to drink beer with him; they're singing a Barry Manilow song in no time. Both are soon hanging out by Liz's bedside, very drunk, and before Aquaman can blurt out Liz's pregnancy in a moment of unguarded inebriation, she wakes up to scold him.
Finishing this impasse, Nuada infiltrates the Bureau's headquarters to kidnap his sister and retrieve the last piece of the crown. He fights Hellboy in Aquaman's library, mortally wounds him by leaving the tip of his spear embedded in Hellboy's boob, and escapes with the princess to Ireland. To save HailndKill a fuck load of further story spoilage a dying Hellboy, Liz, Aquaman, and their german-robot-host-friend escape to the Emerald Isle in a borrowed plane and enter the Golden Army's lair. You might be wondering, what does the Golden Army look like? They're these egg shaped robots with giant retractable blades on each arm. Prince Nuada completes the crown and wears it, thereby resurrecting the mechanized legion who converge on our heroes. A cool fight ensues where Hellboy (healed by a scary-as-hell but very metal looking angel of death he and Liz visited earlier) blasts the robots with his bigass pistol and german-robot-ghost-dude possesses one of them with his gas. It's strange how Liz and Aquaman, given their own impressive powers, do absolutely nothing. Lazy fucks. After minutes of heart-stopping action, our heroes realize none of the Golden Army can be killed. Because once destroyed they immediately start to reanimate and heal. What happens next is Hellboy and Nergal's look-alike engage in a kung fu sword fight; Nuada is beaten. (The fuck if HailndKill has to cover every detail). Pulling out a concealed dagger, he tries stabbing Hellboy in the back but is killed by his own sister, who commits suicide (what hurts one sibling harms the other, you see); Aquaman is heartbroken. Nonetheless, they all exit the Golden Army's lair happy, as if nothing happened. Then Liz, having told Hellboy about her pregnancy while the Angel of Death revived him, drops another bombshell: she's expecting twins. HailndKill wonders how soon part three arrives. Oh, he forgot to mention they all verbally resign from the Bureau upon meeting Mr. Baldy with his agents outside the Golden Army's resting place. Then, while Hellboy and his GF are walking across a grassy meadow, Liz drops the twins bombshell. STAY HEAVY
|
